Father of Captured Jordanian Pilot Pleads with ISIS: Treat Him as a ‘Guest’

The father of a Jordanian pilot captured Wednesday by the Sunni militants ISIS pleaded with the terrorist group to treat his son as a “guest.”

“I do not want to describe him as a hostage. I call him a guest,” Saif al-Kasaesbeh said to Reuters. “He is a guest among brothers of ours in Syria Islamic State. I ask them – by the name of God and with the dignity of the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him – to receive him as a guest of his hosts and treat him well.”

27-year-old Muath al-Kasaesbeh was captured by ISIS after his plane was shot down yesterday, creating worries among the coalition of nations fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Control of the skies had been one of the coalitions primary strengths, one complicated if ISIS had surface-to-air missiles.

But the U.S. military quickly disputed that ISIS had shot the plane down. “Evidence clearly indicates that ISIL did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organization is claiming,” U.S. Central Command stressed.

Al-Kasaesbeh is the first enemy fighter captured by the militants, who have made a ghoulish habit out of beheading their western journalist hostages.